The Dignity of Greece

As the Modern Greek Tragedy continues to play out to a global audience it raises many important issues beyond debt and highlights the increasingly untenable world that we are expected to live in.

Greece identifies the escalating problem of how unstable our financial system has become and why many of the players are now finding obscure bolt holes in places like New Zealand and South America in anticipation of the worldwide implosion they are creating.

But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. How can Brussels remain credible, demonising the Greek people as financial incompetents when, as a bunch of wholly incompetent bureaucrats themselves they have, for over 20consecutive years, irresponsibly managed taxpayer money so badly that the official auditors refuse to sign off any of the EU accounts? ‘Pot and Kettle’ . . . You decide!

The greatest squealing is now coming from Germany, who righteously demand responsibility from Greece in return for their generosity. Oh give me a break!! Have they forgotten that is was German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder and his then finance minister who heavily promoted the admission of the Greek drachma into the European Monetary Union. Was no vetting done?!

Carried on this wave of hubris German banks threw money at Greece as it began to threaten the stability of the Euro. Not only have the German people suffered a continual reduction in their living standards and quality of Life but Deutsche Bank, (the country’s biggest), looks like becoming Europe’s version of Lehman Brothers following the resignation of both CEOs, with other big European banks similarly on the verge of collapse.

Does anyone need to use more than a single brain cell to recognise that a country as tiny as Greece, which accounts for just 1.2% of Eurozone GDP, has just driven a coach and horses through the firm foundations of a ‘United States of Europe’. As the pantomime of the Greek blame game plays out it becomes more and more obvious that the EU is held together with sticking plaster and political hubris of overwhelming proportions.

I for one would be the first to say, “OK guys you’ve had a go but it has all got a bit ambitious and you have to begin seriously cutting back”. However, rationality is lost at the fact that the good people of Europe have had their standard and quality of life cut back and cut back by the costs of running this elephantine political monstrosity.

Added to which they are now being abused by austerity measures that have taken away the dignity of the Greek people and who now have no choice but to watch helplessly as their national assets are plundered and unelected officials put in charge of running their country (as are other nations).

These are the reasons ALL of our living standards and quality of Life have diminished over the years, because of the exorbitant costs of debt and the equally exorbitant costs of running the EU. Please don’t try to argue this one, as the number of 40 years olds still living at home continues to grow.

Greece has shown us so much about an indefensible euro currency now dictating that when a country gets into financial trouble, as all do from time to time, debt is the only solution. Providing debt to repay debt is a no-brainer and yet it is condoned by the EU as the only solution . . . but for whom? . . . Again, you decide.

The dignity that Greece has demonstrated in fighting back against insurmountable odds is a wakeup call to the true nature of the abusive mess our political and corporate leaders have now got us into. Unlike the new Greek government however, nobody is fighting our corner, rather bending us over for more of the same.

It seems to me that the track record of the EU shows it as a ‘Mountain’ specialist. In the 60’s we had ‘Beef Mountains’ followed over the years by ‘Mountainous expense’ in running this burgeoning bureaucratic rice pudding, right up to the present day where we are now experiencing ‘Mountains of Debt’.

The dignity of the Greek people is also showing up the massive lie that our media are insisting we absorb, in fervently supporting the current sorry state of affairs. This support of political irresponsibility and hypocrisy is only possible as long as we read it and believe it. When we stop we will return to a level of personal empowerment we had forgotten we are capable of. (Although I notice more commentators are now defending the actions of Greece and this is to be applauded.)

In the meantime the Ukraine is now receiving debt reduction ‘treatment’ and additional loans, as Brussels and the Troika shamelessly continue their abusive practices. Beware people of the Ukraine and be sure you are not also robbed of your dignity, as the price you pay for becoming immersed in suffocating debt will be that you will later be blamed when it all goes badly wrong, as it surely will!

Until the next time

Thinking from his Book: Global Magna Carta. Returning Power to the 99% . . . If They Want It! By J T Coombes